Karen and Kevin have a happy home, with two loving kids and a cat. It's an idyllic setting, full of laughter and hope, until one Christmas when Kevin gives fidget spinners to each member of the family. He has no idea what destructive consequences this will have. Getting kicked out of church is just the beginning. Within a year their daughter is in foster care, their son is in jail, and the cat is missing. An even more terrible fate is about to befall Kevin. Karen struggles just to keep it together as fidget spinners crumble the very foundations of her life.Based on shocking true events, Fidget Spinners Destroyed My Family is a story of toys, obsession and tragedy.

Reminiscent of Diane Ackerman’s The Zookeeper’s Wife, this stunning novel draws from true accounts to shine a light on a period of Holland’s darkest history and bravest heroes. 1942. As war rips through the heart of Holland, childhood friends Josie van Rees and Eliese Linden partner with a few daring citizens to rescue Eliese’s son and hundreds of other Jewish children who await deportation in a converted theater in Amsterdam. But amid their resistance work, Josie and Eliese’s dangerous secrets could derail their friendship and their entire mission. When the enemy finds these women, only one will escape. Seventy-five years later, Ava Drake begins to suspect that her great-grandfather William Kingston was not the World War II hero he claimed to be. Her work as director of the prestigious Kingston Family Foundation leads her to Landon West’s Ugandan coffee plantation, and Ava and Landon soon discover a connection between their families. As Landon’s great-grandmother shares the broken pieces of her story, Ava must confront the greatest loss in her own life—and powerful members of the Kingston family who will do anything to keep the truth buried. Illuminating the story and strength of these women, award-winning author Melanie Dobson transports readers through time and place, from World War II Holland to contemporary Uganda, in this rich and inspiring novel.

On the heels of her family’s beloved dog’s death, one woman returns to the canines of her past in order to imagine the human she hopes to become in the future in her memoir, What Is a Dog? Chloe Shaw is in a dog house of her own choosing. A married mother with kids, the death of Booker, her children’s eldest family pet, has left her reeling and reckoning with her lifelong relationship with dogs. Unable to shake the feeling a year later, she asks her family for some time alone to be with nothing but her thoughts and remaining canines, Safari and Otter—only to find the dogs of her past pawing at her every memory and running, sticks in mouths, back into her life. What follows is a meditation on one woman’s life through the dogs she's loved and lost. Since she was a child, Shaw had learned to escape the hardest parts of being human by immersing herself in the lives of her canine companions, an adaptive attachment that carried her to adulthood. Yet, in marriage and motherhood, Shaw finds herself facing her most human struggles yet. Her old ways of “being the dog” in the face of hardship prove destructive, and it’s not until she’s able to love herself and learn from the dogs of her past and present that can she truly thrive as a person, and show up for the family who needs her to be their person. With artful prose and a philosophical touch, Shaw takes us on an emotional journey anyone who has ever loved and lost a dog will connect with—and discovers dogs do more than just make our lives better—they quietly (and sometimes loudly) pull us boldly toward the person we were always meant to be.

For fans of Rene Denfeld and Shari Lapena comes a rich, atmospheric family drama set in the 1980's following the disappearances of two paperboys from a small midwestern town. It's August 1984, and paperboy Christopher Stewart has gone missing. Hours later, twelve-year-old Sammy Cox hurries home from his own paper route, red-faced and out of breath, hiding a terrible secret. Crystal, Sammy's seventeen-year-old sister, is worried by the disappearance but she also sees opportunity: the Stewart case has echoes of an earlier unsolved disappearance of another boy, one town over. Crystal senses the makings of an award winning essay, one that could win her a scholarship - and a ticket out of their small Iowa town. Officer Dale Goodkind can't believe his bad luck: another town and another paperboy kidnapping. But this time he vows that it won't go unsolved. As the abductions set in motion an unpredictable chain of violent, devastating events touching each life in unexpected ways, Dale is forced to face his own demons. Told through interwoven perspectives--and based on the real-life Des Moines Register paperboy kidnappings in the early 1980's--The Monsters We Make deftly explores the effects of one crime exposing another and the secrets people keep hidden from friends, families, and sometimes, even themselves.

Despite the tantalizing allure of moving to Artemis, a fantastical city where women hold the power, Cynthia feels lost and alone with no friends. As she explores the matriarchal city she feels excited but terribly isolated.Everything changes when she meets a new group of friends who are members of a curious organization -- an organization dedicated to worshiping "The Holy Gyroscope," which bears a striking resemblance to a modern day fidget spinner. Hoping to impress them, she signs up to be inducted into what she's quickly realizing is a cult. Now Cynthia is thrust into the initiation ceremony, and with delight realizes that she must be pounded from behind while The Holy Gyroscope is plugged into her butt! This erotic tale is 6,500 words of fidget spinner sex cult action, including anal, cult erotica, rough sex, cream pies, and the love between human woman and venerated gyroscopic toy.Want more from City of Goddesses? Read about how Jackie loses her virginity here: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B078PY8SLV

Women don’t feel comfortable telling a man what they wish he knew about dating. He’s expected to know it. Unfortunately, the only time men receive specific guidelines is when they’re being told what they’re notsupposed to do. As a result, very few know what they are supposed to do! What men want is a clear blueprint. Imagine how much simpler dating would be if women could just speak their minds! Therefore, Jason Evert surveyed more than a thousand women and asked them questions such as: · How would you want a man to ask you out? · How do you not want to be asked on a date? This book reveals their surprising answers, plus: · How to know if she’s the right one · Where women don’t want to go on a first date · What word they want a man to say when he asks · When, where, and how he should ask · What she hopes the date will include · How a man can save his marriage before he’s married Dating doesn’t need to become a relic of the past. It needs to be revived. For this to happen, men need to put down their screens, look a woman in the eye, and ask her on a date. The Dating Blueprint explains how.

In this memoir, Maureen O'Brien reflects on the gospel story of the miracle of the loaves and fishes and what she learns about herself, the people around her, and a fragmented but still beautiful world. While she’s sharing her story of finding God’s love, she’s also sharing the stories of so many others, known and cherished by God even when the world leaves them shattered, finding their way through the world and feasting on the fragments of grace that are always in abundance if we learn to look, to see, to accept, to share.

This book takes a fresh look at 'professional experience' in initial teacher education in Australia. Using collaborative narrative methodologies, the authors critically explore the ways in which one faculty of education engages with schools, industry, the teaching profession and government policy to deliver an innovative professional experience program. It includes chapters offering new perspectives on more traditional practicums in schools, as well as those reporting on exciting partnership initiatives where pre-service teachers, teacher educators and practitioners work together to teach and learn in new and mutually beneficial ways. There is a particular focus on the professional learning of all stakeholders from across the professional experience program. The book allows readers to gain a new understanding of the experiences and learning opportunities available to all stakeholders when a professional experience program makes a priority of boundary work, relational work and identity work. With the critical and creative power of narrative to convey what other research methodologies cannot, it shows how one institution has developed a variety of innovative approaches and structures in response to on-going debates on quality in teacher education, the role of educational partnerships in teacher preparation and the personal and professional insights gained from such opportunities.

Abraham, a certified child educator, shares 101 of the best sensory activities to help all kids succeed during times of the day when they have the most trouble focusing and being patient, whether it's getting out the door on time in the morning or peacefully eating a meal with their family at a restaurant. Full color.

Tony has always been a bad dude. He was an explosives expert at the age of ten, and by high school had become a major drug dealer with cartel connections. These days he's making bank as a cage fighter with lucrative sponsorships and fists registered as deadly weapons. In his downtime, he's a motocross champion who also makes swords. His life would be far too intense for the average man, but Tony's got a secret trick up his sleeve: he soaks batteries in a mix of hard liquor and energy drinks for the ultimate pick-me-up.Blake has known Tony since they were kids, and knows better than to believe anything the guy says. The massive wad of bills Tony keeps flashing is real enough, though. Down on his luck, the allure of quick cash makes Tony seem a lot more believable. Blake agrees to do one simple job, continuing to chase the prize even as it becomes clear that Tony is still the liar he's always been.